Witness
by fowl68
Summary: Sometimes, Genis wakes up screaming. Various pairings.


**Disclaimer:** Don't own anything. Words in bold were said by Beverly Clark in Shall We Dance?

**Author's Note:** Been obsessed with dancing movies lately and with the songs Book of Love by Peter Gabriel and Sway by Dean Martin. Summer vacation has started!

A variety of pairings in here. Some will be gay. This is your only warning.

-/-/-

_Once the realization is accepted that even between the closest human beings infinite distances continue, a wonderful living side by side can grow, if they succeed in loving the distance between them which makes it possible for each to see the other whole against the sky. ~Rainer Maria Rilke_

_-/-_

**We need a witness to our lives. There's a billion people on the planet... I mean, what does any one life really mean? But in a marriage, you're promising to care about everything.**

**The good things, **

They visit Ozette after it's finally rebuilt. They stare around at the new buildings and watch the few survivors enter buildings both new and old and look at the new village as though they don't know what they're seeing.

Regal is speaking to Kate, who was choosing to move there—shed' had enough of Sybak—when Presea comes up the hill from visiting her father's grave. She's frowning back at the hill.

"Something wrong?" Regal asks after excusing himself from the conversation to join her.

"This hill used to be smaller."

Regal smiles. "Your legs used to be shorter." Presea had been growing ever since her time had begun moving forward again. The top of her head is almost at his shoulder now.

"That would explain why stairs feel so awkward."

Regal chuckles and gives her a quick one-armed hug. Presea was at that terrifying place between child and woman, as she had been ever since he first met her, but to see the physical evidence is something new entirely.

**The bad things,**

Genis wakes up trying not to scream sometimes. He'll be breathing hard and his hand will clutch at his throat at the remembered horrors that he remembers in perfect, terrible detail because of his near-photographic memory.

And no matter how hard he tries not to wake her, Seles will turn to look sleepily over at him. Once she sees the expression on his face, she'll sit up and slide out of the bed and make him that wonderfully relaxing tea of hers, never saying a word. When he drinks that tea, it lulls him to sleep and he never has any trouble with the bad dreams again that night.

Sometimes, Genis thinks that she drugs it, but he can't bring himself to mind because she's warm beside him and for once, he can't remember.

**The terrible things,**

This isn't the first time they've had to patch each other up. They had long ago learned the normal ways of medicine for they found that they ran out of mana fair quickly. Kratos, being the worst injured right now out of the two of them, is sitting on the edge of the bathtub naked from the waist up.

Yuan whistles low as he assesses the damage. Yggdrasill had really done a number on Kratos this time. His back is a bloody, burned mess right now and he resists the urge to flinch when Yuan lightly touches his back with a wet cloth. Yuan cleans up the blood as best he can with the cloth, the water running pink and red into the drain.

"I'm sorry." Yuan says as he pours antiseptic onto the burns and that is when Kratos flinches and lets out a hiss of pain.

When the burning and stinging sensation goes away, Kratos asks, "For what? The antiseptic or-"

"For tonight. Lloyd…he shouldn't have found out that way."

"…You knew he was alive." Because Kratos hadn't told him after he'd gone back to Cruxis. He hadn't told anyone about Lloyd.

"Yeah."

"For how long?"

Yuan swallows. This is the part where it's going to hurt Kratos the most. "Fourteen years."

Kratos whirls, garnet eyes flashing before he doubles over, groaning as his back flared in agony. Between gritted teeth, he says, "And you never thought to mention it to me that my _son_ was still alive?"

To this day, Yuan doesn't know why he did it. His strategist mind had taken over that day that Anna and Lloyd had gone over the cliff, he supposes. He'd seen the possible worth of having something like that to hold over Kratos.

"What would you have done if I had told you?" Yuan demands, carefully smearing a salve over the burns. Hopefully, they wouldn't scar overmuch. There were enough scars on Kratos, inwards and outwards. "Gone to get Lloyd yourself and then what? Raise him on Derris-Kharlan or would you have kept running with him? You can only run so far until they catch you, Kratos."

Kratos knows that Yuan is right, about all of it, but there is still that resentment. How could Yuan not have told him about his own son being alive? He remains still as Yuan wraps the bandages around his torso.

It's only when Kratos is gently pressing against Yuan's ribs—there were at least two broken, maybe three cracked—when Yuan asks, "Are you going to be able to forgive me?"

It's a mark to how well the know each other—far longer than they'd known Mithos and Martel. They've been brothers, best friends, lovers and enemies and there are still chains of trust between them that they aren't sure how they got there—that Yuan knows better than not to ask if Kratos forgives him right now. It's impossible right now, quite honestly.

"Eventually." Kratos says wrapping Yuan's chest tightly with bandages just enough so that he could still breathe, but enough so that it wouldn't jostle the ribs anymore.

They sleep in the same bed that night, neither of them are sure why. It should have been awkward—Kratos hated him, even a little, right now didn't he? And Yuan had just betrayed Kratos' trust—but it isn't. Once they get into sleeping positions that are relatively painless _(Kratos has always hated sleeping on his stomach and Yuan is propped up on a few pillows, head not far from Kratos')_ they both fall asleep without any difficulties.

Because they know one thing won't change about the other, even if everything else does. They'd never kill each other in their sleep.

**The mundane things... all of it, all of the time, every day. **

They've been travelling for so long that it feels weird to sit down at a table for dinner. Zelos and Lloyd both stare at each other before simultaneously grabbing their plates of rice and curry outside to the garden to sit on the ground.

They share little details about their day as they sip at their spiced teas and Lloyd tells Zelos about the lessons he remembers Raine teaching him about the constellations. As they clean up and put the dishes in the sink—neither were ones to wash dishes right away. They'd do it tomorrow morning anyway—they begin to settle into the little miracles of living together.

They share the toothpaste and Lloyd steals Zelos' socks, claiming that they're much warmer than his own. Lloyd likes to take showers at night and the redhead doesn't. Zelos preferred the right side of the bed; Lloyd liked the left.

It was simple and sometimes perhaps a little boring, but neither of them has had something like this before, so they appreciate it that much more.

**You're saying 'Your life will not go unnoticed because I will notice it.**

After their journey, it feels odd to try and return to the lives they had before. Zelos knows that he suddenly finds the spaciousness of Wilder Mansion a little intimidating and the silence terrible.

So one night, when Zelos is awakened by the phone ringing—there were only nine people in the world who had his number and one was his sister—he answers it right away with a bleary, "Hullo?"

The relief he feels at hearing the familiar voice, the one feigning sincerity right now, is something he isn't sure he can ever describe. "I'm sorry, did I wake you?"

He smiles. "Of _course_ not, darling. What sane person would ever be asleep at," He glances at the clock, "One in the morning?"

She laughs. He isn't bothered at all by the call. Sheena knows his sleeping habits as well as he does and he usually didn't sleep much more than an hour or so thanks to the angel transformation. Tonight had been a fluke and he sits up so that he can speak with her properly.

"Orochi just told me the most fascinating thing." She begins.

"Oh really?"

"Yes, really. Apparently, I was nominated to be the peace ambassador."

"Is that so? What idiot ever nominated you for that?"

"Dunno." He can hear the smile in her voice. "But that idiot is letting me stay with them while I'm in Meltokio."

"I would gladly allow you to stay, darling. Gladly."

**Your life will not go un-witnessed because I will be your witness.**


End file.
